On 2007-06-09 at 10:54:28 [+0200], Marcus Overhagen <marcusoverhagen@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > Oliver Tappe wrote: > > > Hm, wouldn't the bootloader have to *include* the networking stack and the > > drivers? Maybe I'm wrong, but there would be no way to access the modules, > No it doesn't have to, the pxehaiku-loader has networking support (UDP) > > > since they are living on the other side of the network link, right? > > AFAIK, PXE offers downloading an initramfs (cpio-fs), too, so we could stuff > > the needed stuff in there and then the bootloader could tell the kernel that > > there is such a beast. > Yes we could download something with tftp. right now the remote_disk protocol > is used to acess a bfs partition. > > > The kernel would then of course have to unpack/mount the initramfs and > > invoke > > a specific program, which in this case (NBD-boot) would set up networking, > > mount /boot and then would let the kernel continue the booting process. > > > > Marcus: When I tested it last time, I think I noticed that your PXE > > bootloader does not use any initramfs yet, is that correct? > > > > Is there any reason not to use an initramfs? > > The current PXE boot process is like this (I hope I get this right) > > PXE-BIOS loads pxehaiku from tftpserver > pxehaiku load pxehaiku-loader > pxehaiku-loader (zbeos) uses PXE-BIOS-UNDI services to load required files > (kernel) using remote_disk OK, thanks for the info! As far as I understand the PXE setup, it would be possible to fetch the kernel (and potentially the initramfs) via TFTP, thus decoupling the PXE-bootloader from the remote_disk server, right? After all, as I see it, 'remote_disk' is just one of several services that may or may not be needed by a certain booting scenario. So I would find it worthwile to keep haiku-loader as simple as possible and put the complexity into the initramfs. cheers, Oliver